1963: A time to remember

Saturday

Feb 16, 2013 at 12:01 AMFeb 16, 2013 at 11:36 AM

If you can imagine being introduced to the Beatles, James Bond and Betty Friedan at the same time, then you have some idea of how 1963 unfolded. In a decade of tumult and technological innovation, 1963 stands out for many reasons. In a decade of tumult and technological innovation, 1963 stands out for many reasons. Here's a look back at some noteworthy developments marking 50th anniversaries in 2013.

Joe Blundo, The Columbus Dispatch

I?f you can imagine being introduced to the Beatles, James Bond and Betty Friedan at the same time, then you have some idea of how 1963 unfolded.

In a decade of tumult and technological innovation, 1963 stands out for many reasons.

It will, of course, forever be remembered for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the violent reaction to the civil-rights movement in the South.

But it was also a seminal year in pop culture and postal procedures.

Here’s a look back at some noteworthy developments marking 50th anniversaries in 2013:

Beatlemania

The Beatles released their first No. 1 single, Please Please Me, in January 1963 in Britain — followed by an album of the same name two months later. Soon, they had become rock stars in their native country.

By late 1963, the American news media were beginning to take notice of the mania across the Atlantic. I Want To Hold Your Hand was released in the United States on Dec. 26, introducing a group that would rewrite music history.

ZIP code

The five-digit number meant to speed mail processing was seen by many people as a needless complication when it was implemented in July 1963.

“Americans were already struggling to accept the use of new area-code digits being added to the front of telephone numbers; therefore, they were especially annoyed that they had yet another set of numbers to memorize,” says a Smithsonian Institution history of the ZIP code.

By the turn of the 21st century, ZIP codes had become so familiar that someone even put a ZIP code in the title of a TV show: Beverly Hills, 90210.

‘The Feminine Mystique’

When lists of the most influential books of the 20th century are made, Betty Friedan’s examination of the unfulfilling lives of women is always on them.

In the book, published in February 1963, Friedan calls women’s dissatisfaction with domestic life “the problem that has no name.”

“The response to the book was so overwhelming that Ms. Friedan realized she needed more than words to address the condition of women’s lives,” The New York Times said in its 2006 obituary on Friedan.

She went on to become a founder of the National Organization for Women.

‘I Have a Dream’

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. went off-script when he launched into the “I have a dream” portion of his speech delivered at the March on Washington of Aug. 28, 1963.

The civil-rights leader decided on the spur of the moment to depart from the text and expand on the theme he had first voiced a few months earlier in Detroit, Clarence B. Jones, a King confidant, said in a 2011 Dispatch interview.

The result was an electrifying speech that schoolchildren recite to this day.

Instant replay

The feature that revolutionized TV sports viewing was first used on Dec. 7, 1963, when CBS director Tony Verna replayed a 1-yard touchdown run during a broadcast of the Army-Navy game.

The idea of immediately seeing a replay was so novel that sportscaster Lindsey Nelson felt compelled to say: “This is not live. Ladies and gentlemen, Army did not score again.”

Verna said he was simply trying to give the TV audience something to watch between plays.

‘Dr. No’

Many critics panned it. But the first James Bond film, starring Sean Connery, launched one of the most successful movie franchises in cinema history.

It was released in 1962 in Britain and hit American screens in May 1963. In addition to marking the launch of Bond as a screen icon, the movie is also credited with turbocharging bikini sales after viewers saw Ursula Andress in hers.

jblundo@dispatch.com

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